Problem with Wikis is that for any given subject, like you say, there's 3 different wiki sites. There are very little general differences to be found between Wikis. The general idea is the same everywhere; everyone can add and edit articles. Easy as that. Gamepedia has ads just like Wikia has. Maybe less of them, but ads all the same.
As a community I think you want to avoid having 3 or 4 different wikis around the internet, usually all with conflicting information. Fact is that right now there are 2 wiki's available for Oddworld.
The Oddworld Encyclopedia
No offence to Xavier and Will, but that site is immensely outdated. The information on it is limited to in-universe lore and even then it's not complete. For example, there are no articles on any of the industrial factories or organizations like the Magog Cartel. It's all very basic, which of course is not to say it wasn't a lot of work to gather all that information, but that site is almost as old as Oddworld itself and hasn't been updated all that much since then. The last major updates, according to the site itself, were in 2008. It's outdated in almost every way, information, look, software framework, even some links to sources are broken and have been that way for a long time.
The Oddworld Wikia
This Wikia was started in 2005 and was originally quite a mess due to the high amount of fiction and made up facts that people wrote down. It was also frequently vandalized and didn't get the attention it needed. The Wikia was considered a joke here on the forum for good reason. But somewhere in 2011 that Wikia got a new admin that did try his best to clean up the mess best he could. Many of the articles on there are now fairly accurate, even if a lot of them still miss citation and a lot of others still do need to be cleaned up. But as it stands, the Wikia is currently the most up to date Oddworld wiki in existence. When you Google for 'Oddworld Wiki', the Encyclopedia doesn't even show up on the first two pages.
Now, I can see the desire to start an own wiki that is maintained by some of the most involved and knowledgeable individuals in the fanbase, but if only a select number of hand picked individuals get to edit it, what's the point? Eventually it's going to fall into disrepair just like the current Encyclopedia. The entire point of a wiki is that it's open for editing by anyone and that changes are easily reverted.
As for starting another Wiki on Gamepedia, that would mean we get three competing Wikis all with differing grades of information. I don't think that's in any way desirable.
I would much rather see that effort of starting a new wiki, or upgrading the current Encyclopedia, be put into fixing and cleaning the Wikia. It's not as bad as it used to be by a long shot, except for a few pages. But that's where a dedicated editing crew can make a difference. If contributing to an Oddworld wiki is something people really want to do, we should at least make sure we focus that effort in once place and not spread it around 3 different ones.
Just my $0,02.
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The Oddworld Wiki
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